A former Labour party minister is set to be appointed new head of the Schiphol airport group, the NRC has reported.

Dick Benschop has been nominated by the group’s supervisory board but still has to be approved by shareholders – the Dutch state and several local authorities, including Amsterdam.

Benschop, who is 60, was junior minister of economic affairs in the second government led by Wim Kok between 1998 and 2002 but left politics after the PvdA’s fortunes plunged at the 2002 general election. He then went to work for Shell, including a spell as head of Shell Nederland.

On Friday, the Volkskrant reported that the replacement for Schiphol boss Jos Nijhuis would be a man to preserve the balance of the management board.

The airport group would prefer a new male CEO otherwise there would be more women than men on the four-strong board, the paper said, quoting an airport spokesman.